Inktober 2019, Day 7: Enchanted

The prompt, "Enchanted," reminded me of the Emperor's New Clothes aspect of psychiatry. I'm not opposed to the profession, in fact I find it interesting and full of hope. But it is admittedly weird, its foundation is more of a leap of faith than other medical fields, and its history is riddled with major problems. I've come to see it as a flawed tool, used by flawed people, doing their best to help other flawed people. The foundations of "professional detachment" and the "authority" of the medical community are especially ephemeral in interactions between what are essentially two flawed people. I think most patients know this, even as they choose to continue. Most psychiatrists would probably agree as long as they're not feeling attacked and have not drunk the Doctors Are Gods kool-aid (which, to their credit, a large number have not). Anyway, that is what I mean by the "Emperor's New Clothes" aspect of the profession: both patients and psychiatrists must do a lot of pretending to make it work.

Psychiatrists. Inktober 2019, Day 7, prompt word, "Enchanted." Dip pen and ink, 8 x 11 in. by Ciana Pullen. [Image description: Black and white contour pen drawing of a group of naked people standing examining around an object or person of interest (not pictured). One young thin man leans down and extends a pointer finger as if about to push a button. A woman with short hair slouches and holds a clip board. A tall older fatter man with a beard stands with his legs planted far apart and his arms crossed. The background is blank.]

Inktober 2018 Day 20 "Breakable"

Day 20 of Inktober, prompt word "Breakable." I previously wrote about Inktober here. This is an edited version, but I'm posting these daily on my Instagram, @St.Rhinoceros:

Day 20 of Inktober 2018, prompt word "Breakable." Dip pen and ink. By Ciana Pullen / St. Rhinocéros. [Image description: black and white ink drawing of a woman walking on a beach. A more detailed rectangular section in the upper center of the page shows a woman in a sweatshirt and jeans walking near the waves viewed from far away. A piece of driftwood and seaweed sits half buried in the sand. Beyond the frame of that rectangular section is a series of five overlapping contour line drawings of a nude woman walking, looking up and looking down and ahead, walking forward and, with perspective, moving diagonally from upper left to lower right toward the viewer. The larger version of the driftwood also makes an overlapping appearance beyond the rectangular section. The horizon line and edge of the waves extends also beyond the section forming a triangular shape because of perspective. The overall style is realistic, not cartoony.]

Seated Woman, by Ciana Pullen

Seated Woman, by Ciana Pullen. Sketched from life, chalk pastel, 2010.

Sketch of a Seated Man, by Ciana Pullen

Sketch of a Seated Man, by Ciana Pullen, 2009. Drawn from life, charcoal.

Woman on a Chair (Blue and Orange), by Ciana Pullen

Woman on a Chair (Blue and Orange) by Ciana Pullen. Figure drawing from life, chalk pastel, 2009.

Figure Drawing of a Seated Man, by Ciana Pullen

Figure Drawing of a Seated Man, by Ciana Pullen 2009

Guess who?

Who could this be taking a bath? [A painting of a man sitting in a full bath tub with the faucet running, painted from his point of view and showing only his thighs, knees and toes above the water. A green stripe surrounds the tub, which is built into a corner, with a black "back-splash" forming a thick black line across the top right and a dynamic trapezoid on the left, due to perspective. The very top quarter consists of a beige wall with a white thing (towel?) on it and curtains, possibly bamboo, on the left wall, where soft natural light appears to be filtering in.]

Same guy, better angle. But who?! you may ask. [Image: amateur painting of a white grey-haired man in the shower. His body, shown only from behind and from the waist up, is somewhat beefy and completely naked, appearing to lean from the hips into the picture frame. His face is reflected in a small round mirror clipped to the shower head, which shoots small jets of water straight down the center of the image. Glass doors are visible just at the left edge; the rest of the picture is the wall of the shower, covered in large pink-beige stone tiles; the grout runs parallel and perpendicular to the edges of the painting. There are no really dark darks, even in shadow.]

Ladies and gentlemen, former President George W. Bush. The poor guy's email got hacked and these paintings he did are no longer private.

So, how do you feel?

I admit that my immediate thought upon unexpectedly glimpsing W in the shower, in the nude, was neither considerate nor edifying:



[video: an episode of The Simpsons where Marge is hired to paint Montgomery Burns's portrait. He moves into their house so she can get to know his "inner beauty," which is when she walks in on him in the shower.]

If you don't remember how this episode of The Simpsons turns out, the desperate Marge is unable to find any inner beauty in the inimitably evil Burns. Eventually the museum gala rolls around and the portrait is revealed:

[Image: portrait of Mr. Burns naked, skinny and hunched over in front of a purple background in a spotlight]

The audience is shocked and appalled until Marge explains that she wanted to convey the humanity, the fragility of Burns. One museum-goer sums up, "He's evil-- but he'll die. I like it." People warm to it, acknowledging that Burns is straight-up evil, but the humanity and fragility helps them see the good in him.

I continued to draw this unflattering comparison as I read each response to Bush's paintings (all from left-leaning people). Basically, everyone found him completely irredeemable until he displayed his humanity and vulnerability in these somewhat pathetic (though not terrible) paintings.

Jerry Saltz showed off his turdlier side by writing about these as serious Whitney-ready art, dropping the bomb, "even from someone who obviously has zero natural talent" amidst his facetiously "glowing" review. Really, Jerry Saltz? You lose your license to be the Everyman's Critic when you behave like that.

Yet even as I was typing the description of the shower painting I found myself lapsing into serious criticism, catching myself just before I described W's naked torso as a pictorial simplification that melds the cartoonish plastic GI Joe figure with primitive paintings of Christ on the cross. GI Jesus: an apt description of his public persona while in office.

I also think it's interesting that each painting is so light and soft-- really, they're downright feminine. The famously transgressive pinks of de Kooning's paintings of nude women come to mind when I see the pink tile and pink body of one; the other reminds me of an ad for a spa. They're also very meditative; he and I may be similarly afflicted by doing our best thinking in the bathroom. One imagines W had little time for splashing around in the tub or leisurely showers during his 8 years in the White House; I think the world sighs its collective relief that he does now.

Much has been made of the content. People have suggested the tub is evocative of water-boarding, with the running faucet signifying guilt. Others, that he is attempting to cleanse himself from his deeds as President. Saltz writes, "These are pictures of someone dissembling without knowing it, unprotected and on display, but split between the promptings of his own inner drives and limited by his abilities. They reflect the pleasures of disinterestedness. A floater. Inert." It's worth noting, of course, that lots of amateurs and high school students paint bathroom scenes because the bathroom is just an interesting place, visually and psychologically. It could also be that he did these as assignments for a class or instructional book. Basically, I think this: that his stuff is amateur but not beginner, promising but not there yet, nice composition, interesting subject matter (though very probably by accident).

I've gotta admit, he took some risks and it sucks that his paintings got released to the public. But hey, at least it happened to a man and not, say, Hillary Clinton or, God help her, Michelle Obama.

Bush also made public (on purpose) this painting in memory of FDOTUS Barney:

Barney, by George W. Bush. [Image: head and shoulders of a grey-black Scottish Terrier, I think, on a white background, signed "43." The dog turns to look at the viewer, and the brushstrokes describe the direction of the fur. It's not bad; technically, probably the best of W's paintings]

Poor Barney. Even though I have absolutely no recollection of this dog I miss him just a little now.

Nude Debate

I received my invitation to the 2012 Re-Nude show benefiting Planned Parenthood, which will be Wednesday, March 21 6:00pm -10:30pm at REDUX. I wrote about it last year here, here and here, and I can't wait!

[Image: flier for Re/Nude event. Reads, "Re/Nude: Celebrate the Body / Support Charleston Planned Parenthood." To the right and underneath the text are the silhouettes of a thin woman with longer hair showing outlines of her head, upper arms, hips and calves, in purple/pink. Resting in front of her shins is a reclining thin male silhouette showing outlines of his feet and legs, torso, arms and head, in coral pink/orange.]

Around the time I received my invite I read this post by Twisty Faster. To sum up, a young Egyptian woman named Aliaa Magda Elmahdy posted nude photos of herself on her blog as a big old Fuck You to the Salafis, who are a strict fundamentalist Islamic party that seems to have come out on top following the Arab Spring. Her actions, and the considerable risk she's taking, have sparked attention and controversy a few months ago in Egypt, the Western media and feminist blogs internationally. To support Elmahdy a group of Canadian feminists assembled a nude calendar featuring a "nude revolutionary" each month with the proceeds benefiting something-or-other related to Elmahdy's cause.

Twisty compares and contrasts the contexts of Egyptian and Canadian female nudity and questions the efficacy of a feminist nude calendar within the Patriarchy. To those unfamiliar with Twisty's blog she advocates a hard-line radical feminist rejection of Patriarchy-- that is, the system of dominance, objectification and hierarchy embedded in every element of our global society: misogyny, racism, classism, and so on. (Spoiler: she finds the Canadian nude revolutionaries ineffective at challenging Patriarchy).

Drawing of Aliaa Magda Elmahdy by The Corpse Debutante.

So when I go see the artistic representations of nudity at Re-Nude this March they will be on display in the context of the Patriarchy.  I will be viewing them as a feminist and an individual person but I will also be taking into account the context of the Patriarchy. And here is where I'm torn.

Being realistic about the limitations of empowerment through nudity in a Patriarchy, refusing to gloss over capitulation to the Patriarchy, refusing to pretend a nude portrayal of a woman exists outside our tradition of oppression, pornification and objectification, is a feminist act. However valuing my own experience and POV as a woman, learning to think outside the confines of Patriarchy, and really listening to other women is also profoundly feminist. In the context of nude art created with at least some input from women and shown in a gallery for the general public, I am stuck. Ambivalent. 

Should Female Nudes Be Prettier? (Ha!)

I very much enjoyed this post (scroll down till you see the headline, "Female Nudes Should Be Prettier") on Echidne of the Snakes. Yes, this really exists, or it did as of 2003: a league of "gentlemen" is advocating the production and inclusion of more "pretty" female nudes to counter all the "ugly" ones in modern & contemporary art.

A poster for feminist activist group The Guerrilla Girls, showing Ingres' famous reclining nude, but with her head replaced by a the group's signature gorilla mask. Text reads, "Do women have to be naked to get into the Met. Museum? Less than 5% of the artists in the Modern Art Sections are women, but 85% of the nudes are female."

I've sometimes heard-- from female artists, no less!-- that female nudes are more rewarding to draw because women are "made of shapes." Yeeeaaahhh.... Or that "no one" wants to look at nude men (I guess women and gay/bi men are "no one?") I would point out to these people that if women throughout history were not enjoying nude men and making active use of their shapes, there would be no babies.